


light reflects from your shadow

by skvadern



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/F, Past Serious Injury, Past Violence, Scars, Tenderness, azu canonically doesn't know how gorgeous she is and thats a crime, very brief mention of domestic abuse - not related to azu or kiko
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:02:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26424568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skvadern/pseuds/skvadern
Summary: Gods, such large, strong hands have no business being so gentle.Kiko wants to know the story behind Azu's scars.For Azu Week Day 1: Armour/Heart
Relationships: Azu/Kiko (Rusty Quill Gaming)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 30





	light reflects from your shadow

**Author's Note:**

> lil bit off prompt, but i love a good scar, and i really wanted to poke at azu and kiko's developing relationship a bit.  
> title from angels by the xx

“So,” Kiko says, twisting to look at where Azu is reclining on her pile of comfy things, reading another one of her romance novels, “how did you lose the tusk?”

That gets her attention – Azu looks up at where Kiko is sitting against the wall, a quizzical look on that pretty face of hers. “What?” she asks, surprised, and Kiko smiles at her.

“Your broken tusk,” she repeats, “what happened there? Something dramatic and heroic, right?”

Azu laughs sheepishly, shaking her head. “Not exactly. It’s a bit embarrassing, really.” She shifts a little, and once again Kiko gives thanks that her paladin is so easy to read.

Turning to face Azu, Kiko rolls up her trouser leg. She sees Azu’s eyes dart over the exposed skin before skipping away, and is suddenly sure that under the darkness of her cheeks, Azu is blushing. Resisting the urge to preen, Kiko points out the scar that curves along her calf

“One of the kids I used to play with said there was a monster squatting in an abandoned shed at the edge of the town. I decided to go look for myself, so I walked right in, bold as you like, and stepped straight through a section of rotten floorboard.”

“Oh no,” Azu murmurs, looking torn between laughter and genuine distress.

“Yeah,” Kiko laughs. “I remember trying to come up with monsters that could have done this to me while I was stumbling back home, so I’d at least have a good story for the other kids.”

Azu does laugh then, deep and sweet. “How did it scar so much? Didn’t you have a healer living locally?”

Kiko shrugs. “The local healer wasn’t the best. I stopped bleeding everywhere, we called it good.” She watches as Azu reaches out again, then aborts the movement, and says, “You can touch it, you know. I don’t mind.”

Azu hesitates, then reaches out all the way, her hand ghosting along the raised skin so lightly that Kiko can’t suppress a shiver. Gods, such large, strong hands have no business being so gentle.

There’s an odd reverence to the way Azu’s fingers brush the twisted skin, like she’s laying her hands on the original wound. It’s… a lot. Kiko opens her mouth to fill the silence. “I don’t mind it. Reminds me I was a stupid kid, so I don’t continue being stupid as an adult.”

Azu grins, but shakes her head. “Not stupid. Curious, maybe. Brave.”

The thing is, Kiko thinks as she processes that, Azu’s being completely genuine. The woman doesn’t seem to have an _un_ genuine bone in her body.

“Right, so, I’ve told you my embarrassing scar story,” she says instead of engaging with that. “How about you tell me yours?”

Azu squints at her, and then sighs, rolling onto her side and tucking her arm under her head. “It’s a bit of a long story, and I’m not the best storyteller.”

Sternly, Kiko promises herself that she won’t laugh at this long story, no matter how embarrassing it is. Azu’s so obviously reluctant to tell her, she can’t bear to be a dick about it. “I’ve got time,” she replies, sliding to the floor and grabbing a pillow to stick under her head. She curls on her side to face Azu, and gestures encouragingly.

“Fine,” Azu sighs again, then takes a deep breath. “So, we were in Cairo, and we needed to get the Heart of Aphrodite to the local temple –“ at Kiko’s blank look, she elaborates, “a powerful healing relic – one of the _most_ powerful ever, actually. Powerful enough to heal... anything. Even undeath. Powerful enough that the Meritocrats only agreed to let us use it because my friends had basically saved the world for them. We needed it to heal…” She trails off for a moment, something sad and shadowed passing over her face, before saying, “A friend,” with the smallest catch to her voice.

Kiko keeps her face blank, and lets the moment pass.

“Anyway,” Azu continues, her tone much brighter, “on our way from the vaults where it was kept, to the Temple of Aphrodite we were delivering it to, we ran into… some trouble.”

“Oh?”

“A mob of Hades cultists attacked us when we were closing in on the temple,” Azu says, and Kiko blinks. The name rings a bell – one of the Western gods, she thinks, but not one she’s familiar with. “Evil people,” Azu elaborates when she sees Kiko’s confused look.

“Evil, huh,” Kiko replies with a grin – there’s something endearing about how confident Azu is with that assertion – and Azu looks calmly back.

“We checked,” she says, and Kiko’s grin shrinks as she remembers that evil isn’t just a word, for Azu – she can _see_ it. All she needs to do is ask her god. Must be a hell of a thing, that.

“They were trying to get the Heart,” Azu continues, and Kiko makes herself focus again. “The others got… I don’t know, there was some mind control magic. They were frozen, they couldn’t move. I ended up having to hack my way through a group of the cultists to escape the carriage, and I was halfway to the temple when whatever it was hit me too, and I collapsed.” She grins sheepishly. “On my face. My tusk must have hit a rock or something.”

Kiko stares. There probably is something she can say to that, but honestly, she can’t think of a word.

“I came to in a pile of them,” Azu continues, apparently not put off by Kiko’s shocked silence. “They were searching me, you know, for the Heart, but it was still on me, thank Aphrodite. I tried to scare them away, but one of them knocked me unconscious again. My friend slapped me back into consciousness, and,” she gestures at the scar slicing through her eyebrow, “this happened.”

Kiko still can’t stop staring, but she does manage a sentence. “I’m sorry, I thought you said this was embarrassing?”

“Well, I did get taken down,” Azu points out, in what she probably thinks is a reasonable voice. “Twice, even. The second time, especially…” she trails off when Kiko keeps staring. “What?”

“Azu,” Kiko says slowly, “you’re telling me that you had to fight off an actual horde of murderous cultists, while holding the world-breakingly powerful divine artefact they were trying to steal, largely _on your own_ ; that you managed to keep said artefact – something, I might add, more powerful than anything I’ve ever been in the presence of, much less had hanging around my fucking _neck_ – away from them, despite being knocked unconscious twice-“

“They weren’t very good at searching,” Azu puts in, and Kiko boggles at her.

“Ohhh, that is _so_ not the point. Azu, you’re not seriously telling me that you’re ashamed of this? I know people who’ve dined out their whole life on stories not even a _tenth_ as impressive as that, and you’re acting like it’s nothing.”

“I still don’t think it’s that impressive,” Azu mutters, her eyes now trained firmly on the floorboards. “If reinforcements from the temple hadn’t met us halfway, we’d _definitely_ had lost. And if Grizzop hadn’t-“ she cuts herself off sharply, another one of those shadows passing over her face, and again, Kiko waits her out. She’s curious, about these names that Azu won’t say, but even she’s not that bad.

“So you’re saying that if you’d gone up against – how many attackers was it, again? – entirely on your own, you’d have been defeated? And you think that’s a reasonable argument against you being a hero?”

Azu still won’t look at her, and Kiko sighs. Being fair, there’s probably more tactful ways to try and get someone to admit that they’re impressive as hell; but then, Kiko’s never really cared for tact.

“Any more scars with stories like that attached?” she asks instead.

Azu does look up then, and if anything she looks more bashful. Biting her lip, she shifts, raising the hem of her sunrise-coloured robe, exposing a plane of muscled stomach and a little trail of curling hair running down to the waistband of her leggings. Kiko’s mouth goes dry all of a sudden, lips aching with the need to kiss that lovely expanse of bared skin.

The overwhelming wave of desire fades to something manageable after a moment, and Kiko manages to spot the wicked, jagged scar curving across Azu’s stomach. All the way across, and it looks like it went deep – a disembowelling blow. A killing blow. She sucks in a sharp breath, eyes widening.

“That… how are you not dead?” she asks, before shutting up when she realises her voice has gone humiliatingly high.

Azu’s mouth twists into a wry smile. “I was travelling with another paladin of Aphrodite, a human called Eguono. She healed me as much as she could.”

“What did that to you?” Kiko all but whispers, her hand twitching with the urge to reach out, tracing the fossilised remnant of the wound.

Azu takes a deep breath, then blows it out. “We were travelling to the seminary, where I was going to start my training. It was on Eguono’s way, so she was escorting me. There was a family that travelled with us for a while, a woman and her children. Eguono thought there was something strange going on with them, but they seemed like good people. Just scared.”

Azu sighs, pulling down her robe again and twisting her fingers into the flowing fabric. “It turns out they were fleeing her husband, which we discovered when he and three other men, all heavily armed, attacked our camp one night.”

Kiko reaches out cautiously – gods know she’s not used to giving comfort like this – and rests a hand on top of Azu’s where it’s still toying with her clothes. Azu doesn’t react much, lost in her memories, but her hand does relax from its clench in the fabric, and Kiko decides to take that as a win.

“The three attacked Eguono,” Azu continues, “separated her off from us. I was left defending the family from the husband.” Her eyes have gone a little glassy, and Kiko fancies she can see firelight reflecting in them, glinting off armour and drawn weapons.

“Did you have any training?” she asks softly.

Azu shakes her head a little. “I’ve always been strong – I was a farmer, back home. I could fight a little, some self defence, and Eguono had been teaching me a little as we went. But at that point, I’d only fought the village bullies as a child, or sparred with my brother or Eguono. Never… never anything like that.” Her voice catches on the edges of the sentence, and Kiko can imagine the ghost of fear she can see in her eyes, magnified tenfold in a younger, unscarred face.

“Tell me you were armed, at least,” Kiko murmurs.

Azu nods. “Oh, yes – if I hadn’t been, I don’t think I would have made it. I had an axe; not this one, not yet, the one I’d brought with me from my village. So I told the family to get behind me and I… I tried to talk him out of attacking.”

Despite herself, Kiko snorts. She may not have known Azu all that long, but even she can tell that’s such a very Azu plan. “Didn’t work, then?”

“No,” Azu says, melancholy. “He was the first person I ever killed.”

Kiko squeezes Azu’s hand. “I’m sorry,” she says, and then realises she has no idea what else to say.

Azu shakes her head. “He was evil. I couldn’t see it, at the time, but I’m certain of it. The things he said to that poor woman, her children…” The sadness fades out, replaced by resolve, and Kiko’s eyes blur for a moment as she imagines this younger Azu, farmer’s axe in hand, facing off against a grown man, armed to the teeth and spitting curses. She can picture the look on younger Azu’s face, clear as day.

“I managed to overpower him – just. If the woman I was protecting hadn’t distracted him just before he finished me off…” Azu trails off again, and her hand twists in Kiko’s grip to weave itself into hers. So big, Kiko thinks. So much strength in those warm, calloused hands. So much gentleness.

If it hadn’t been for this woman she’ll never meet, Kiko would never have gotten to feel those hands on hers. It’s a sobering thought.

“This was before I had my armour,” Azu says softly. “It was the reason I chose a set of full plate, actually. I knew something like that would probably happen again, and the next time I needed to put myself between a threat and someone who couldn’t defend themselves, I wanted to be prepared.”

Kiko can remember the first time she’d seen Azu in her armour, a glowing pink colossus – and then, shamefully, remembers that in amongst her curiosity had been a little disdain. _Does she really walk around wearing_ that? _Does she_ fight _like that? Isn’t it a bit… much?_

Kiko knows she can be a bit judgmental. It’s a flaw; admittedly not one she’s spent much time on improving, but then she’s never been proved so spectacularly wrong before.

With one smooth movement, she pushes herself up and swings her leg over Azu’s hips, straddling her and nudging her to lie down on her back. Azu gasps, her eyes fluttering closed and her lips parting – oh but she’s so beautiful, Fūjin help her – and Kiko can’t resist leaning down to kiss her.

It’s as sweet as the first time again, warm and electric in her gut, and the smooth drag of Azu’s tusks against the corners of her mouth only warms Kiko further. The broken one catches ever so slightly, and Kiko shivers, picturing the beautiful orc under her wielding that massive axe that she’s watched her sling around like it’s nothing, gentle face resolute and fierce.

“You’re a marvel, Azu,” she breathes when their lips part. “I have exactly no idea how you don’t see that.”

Azu looks away, bashful. “I suppose it doesn’t seem that marvellous when you’re the one doing it.”

“In that case,” Kiko replies, “you’re just going to have to trust me.”

She leans down to catch Azu’s lips again, sighing happily into her mouth when Azu’s arms come up to wrap around her, pulling her close. There’s so much strength in those arms, in the whole warm body laid out beneath her, and in the snug circle of them, Kiko feels improbably, wonderfully safe.

**Author's Note:**

> fujin is the god of the wind and one of the major kami in shinto. since alex implied that japanese gods are worshipped in japan instead of the greek pantheon, i figured a wind god would be a good fit for an airship crew-woman, the daughter of two aeronauts herself


End file.
